


with friends like ours (anywhere is home)

by lilevans (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marauders - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, F/M, NYE - Freeform, first wizarding war, mild mentions of violence, minor sirius/mary, uhhh inspired by another night on mars by the maine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 20:39:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13621260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lilevans
Summary: the marauders + crew on new years eve, 1978."she doesn’t remember where they ended up, whose floor she’s woken up on (she does not recognise it’s hers.) But she’s decided that she doesn’t care. Because they’re all here, together."in which they know that life is shit, but they're still all here and that's what matters.





	with friends like ours (anywhere is home)

**Author's Note:**

> this was defs inspired by "another night on mars" by the maine, PLS check it out ahhh. also pls note this has not been thoroughly edited bc i wanted to get this out there so there may be minor mistakes. i hope u enjoy bc i love these idiots so much.

 

1st of January 1979. She wakes up with James’ arm thrown haphazardly around her middle, nothing but the bar floor beneath them. A blanket is strewn over them carefully. (Sirius put it there.) Sirius is on the couch beside them, peter’s head propped against the couch next to that, foreheads slightly touching. Marlene and Mary occupy the bed, hair in their mouths, eyeliner smudged. Alice blinks sleepily from her spot across the room, then rolls back into frank’s arms and goes back to sleep. Lily’s head pounds, the room is spinning, just a little. Something smells like firewhiskey and wood smoke the record player on the counter is still playing Elvis. but she smiles all the same. She doesn’t remember where they ended up, whose floor she’s woken up on (she does not recognise it’s _hers._ ) But she’s decided that she doesn’t care. Because they’re all here, together.

* * *

 

Sirius doesn’t remember the last time he got a good night sleep. Every time he tries, he just blinks, stares at the ceiling, looking at the cigarette smoke he’s trailing, and his thoughts just don’t _stop._ It’s not one long stream of fucked up, but little flashes. 

Screams in the night at Gryffindor tower. A first year’s mum was killed. The time Regulus and his friends cornered him in the north wing and cursed him so his skin was etched with the words “ _blood traitor._ ” How he was the one who got detention for punching Avery and knocking his teeth out. How he spent that night on the floor of the shower scrubbing his skin raw to get rid of the words. Someone who was once his brother did that. They used to have baths together. James and Remus found him and they took him to the hospital wing. He couldn’t tell Madam Pomfrey who did it. Unlike his brother, he still had some sense of stupid loyalty.

Sometimes, at night, he thinks that regulus and his mother aren’t so different. Which he hates, because he never knew his mother as anything other than what she is. He’s never known anything but retorting with sarcasm or flinching when her voice is just a little _too_ quiet. But he used to think regulus was different.

He realises, as he lays awake on James’ couch, him and lily in the next room, Remus on the fold out bed, Pete curled on the lounge chair, that he always sleeps better with this fuck heads around. He’s known that for a while, and it fills him with some odd sort of hope, because he knows that he’ll never have to say it out loud. They know. Lily’s lopsided clock that her dad made reads 4:17. Last day of 1978. Better make it a good one.

* * *

Pete is the (second) last to wake up, but the one to make breakfast. It steadies his shaking hands, cooking, being busy. He likes cooking. It’s like silently telling his friends that _see? He isn’t completely useless._ He wishes he didn’t care so much, but Pete has always wished to be liked, to be cool. To be everything he isn’t. And he wishes he didn’t wish for that, that he could remember a time he wasn’t bullied for being small and having front teeth too big for his face. He’s almost nineteen, and he’s tired of being so pathetic.

Lily gets up and helps him make the eggs and the coffee, and she’s humming a song by Elvis. Pete doesn’t know which one, but James does, because he’s got that look, the look that he gets when lily does anything. Pete wishes he had someone to look at like that.

* * *

 

Lily doesn’t say anything, but she pokes her tongue at James to stop him staring. He shuts his jaw hurriedly, but she sets coffee on the table and kisses him sloppily. Remus looks up from the newspaper to give them a disapproving eyebrow.

They laugh for a moment. They forget how cold it is outside, how dark the world is out there. Voldemort is probably killing muggles right this second. But they forget that.

Just for a moment.

“Stop reading those, moony.” James says, barely more than a whisper. “They don’t help.”

Remus softens. “Sorry. I just… I’m scared my mum will be waiting for my dad with dinner one night… and he’s not going to come home.”

Lily touches his shoulder, gentle and firm. Remus nods.

“It’s okay.”

It’s really not, none of it is, Remus is terrified, and they all are, the one thing their parents all agreed on was that the five of them needed to stick _together._ And they’re right. The five of them in the room, and life feels a little less dark.

Lily shakes Sirius awake, and when he only mumbles, she blows on his face.

“We made you coffee, wanker.”

He blinks. “Black?”

She scoffs. “As if we would ever make you anything else.”

* * *

 

James takes a trip to Diagon alley and buys as much alcohol as he possibly can, then, he asks lily if they can go get some muggle alcohol. Sirius tells them to get smokes while they’re there.

“Only if we get the brand _I_ like,” Lily says as she puts on her coat.

“ _Fine._ ”

On the way to the liquor store, James pulls lily into the general store and gets party hats, a bottle of milk, blue cheese, various lollies, and two different brands of cigarettes. Lily pretends not to know him as he pays for it all.

“In for a wild night?” The cashier asks, raising a brow.

“Of sorts. Happy new year.” James grins and saunters out of the store, but drops the milk and pitifully asks lily to pick it up for him. She rolls her eyes, but does it anyway. James thinks that he would do anything to see her roll her eyes and smile like that. He does not care how many bottles of milk that takes.

* * *

Mary shows up at the flat and tells them they’re going to the bar, stash a few bottles of firewhiskey, Marlene, Frank and Alice are there.

Remus looks like he’s gonna shake his head, but he puts a bright sweater on says he’s coming.

Lily’s fingers thread themselves through James as they look at each other through the bathroom mirror. She saw an article in the paper that a ministry official’s son is missing. She didn’t mean to see it. But james knows she saw and they burnt the paper in the fireplace. Sometimes the only thing you can do to distract yourself from the world catching alight is to burn something else.

They pretend they’re not avoiding it. Dumbledore has a plan. It’s going to be fine.

* * *

 

Marlene hugs them all when she sees them, practically toppling off the bar stool, smelling like strawberry milkshakes and firewhiskey. Lily takes in every moment that they’re touching. Committing it to memory. Just in case.

Mary looks like she hasn’t been sleeping either. Her and Sirius make eye contact and nod. They both know. It’s all too fucked up.

“Happy new year, McDonald. Hope this one is a little less shitty.” He holds a beer bottle to her firewhiskey glass.

“Thanks, Black.” Her dimples poke through her worn exterior, reminiscent of the 17 year old she was 5 months ago, when she had just finished school and the world all of a sudden seemed a whole lot bigger.

“Are we already drinking? It’s 2pm.” Peter says as he glances at his watch.

Sirius grins. “It’s new years eve, pete. Grow some balls.”

* * *

 

They get kicked out at 8pm because Pete is already off his fucking head and he’s singing _baby come back_ to the bar maid dramatically. Sirius can’t stop laughing, he doesn’t think his belly will ever ache like this, that he’ll feel this _good_ again. Remus is trying not to laugh, back of his hand against his mouth as he nurses his drink. A party hat that James brought sits haphazardly on his head. He closes his eyes for a moment, listening to Pete’s god awful singing and the barmaid’s distressed cries. He doesn’t think life is that shit, really.

They don’t know where they’re supposed to go after that, but they sort of just walk and end back up in Lily and James’ flat. Which is sort of everyone’s flat really. Remus stashes his chocolate in the back cupboard and lily pretends not to know where it is when Pete goes looking for it. Sirius and Lily constantly argue about the brand of cigarettes they buy, even though they’ll smoke either on the balcony together. James always forgets which toothbrush is his and they have to write his name on it. They throw popcorn at each other and share the records and play board games. Lily sits on the floor and presses her legs against James as she swigs her drink and lets herself feel warm, Mary and Marlene always battle for the one seat on the couch. Half the time they just sit on each other. Frank and Alice always bring extra coffee mugs over so there’s enough for everyone in the morning. They always forget to bring them back home with them.

So, of course, it makes sense, that they walk through twisted, turning streets that have slivers of sleet and snow in between the cracks of the tiles, and go back to james and lily’s flat.

Marlene picks the record.

Sirius lets out a groan.

“Really? Again? Billy Joel is _old,_ now, Mckinnon.”

“Fuck off, Black. I’m not listening to _your_ music.”

She gives him the bird and he pouts, taking a sip of his drink.

(He knows all the words to the entire album; he’s tipsy and singing along to just the way you are within the hour.)

* * *

 

Mary sits on the countertop and swings her legs, Remus is trying to play the piano while definetly drunk and hang upside down atop of it, Pete and Sirius are arm in arm singing along to whatever Remus is trying to play. Frank and James try to kick a soccer ball to each other, but it smashes the light and the window and falls off the balcony. Lily and James spit vodka at each other and have a compitiation to see who can draw the coolest cat while drunk. Alice mediates and decides that Lily wins for neatness, but james wins for creativity.

Sirius finds lily crying in the bathroom. She sometimes studied in the library with a girl called Matilda. She was found dead in her home. Lily is a little bit out of her mind. Sirius gives her his jumper and lets her use it as a hankerchief. He holds her hand and gives her his beer.

“This is the year we end this, evans. I promise you.”

“You can’t promise that, black.”

“No, I can’t, but he can.” He looks at James as he enters the room. James is giving her that look again. She sometimes wishes he would stop that, but then she knows that she never, ever wants him to stop looking at her like that. She likes how he makes her heart feel. 

“I promise you, Lil.”

She sighs and swigs her beer, sniffling. “I guess I take your word for it Jim.”

Her heart burns.

The clock on the mantel, the one that’s lopsided that her dad made, says 11:32. Lily cant wait for this year to be over.

James stumbles onto the balcony with her, their hands sweaty, but neither let go. Her breath mists, and she can’t decide if it’s December air or January air.   
“Decemuary,” James mumbles, as if he was having the same thought.

She smiles. “that’s stupid. I love it.”

“I love you.”

She doesn’t need to say it back, so she presses her forehead to his shoulder and shivers.

“Do you really think that things will change this year?” She asks as he gazes at the abandoned soccer ball below.

“We are the change.” He murmurs.

“I like to think so.”

* * *

 

Peter changes the record to Elvis and he, remus, and mary yell excitedly. They turn it up and the whole crew file out onto the balcony. James sits down against the bars and Lily is beside him. A bottle of vodka and a bottle of firewhiskey is thrown into the middle as the group forms a circle.

“What do you want to happen this year?” Lily mumbles as she sips the firewhiskey, before passing it to James.

“Puddlemere wins, I beat the shit out of a death eater, you let me write my name on the wall,” James says as he takes a swig.

“You’re not writing your name on the bloody wall.”

“I wanna kill a death eater.” Sirius says into the dead quiet. They all know that’s terrible, but they all know it’s justified. No one knows how to fill the silence.

“Also, Evans starts buying cigarettes I actually like,”

They laugh.

“I get better at making souffles. And my mum stays safe.”

They cheers to Tabitha Pettigrew and souffles.

“I want a new record player. And for Sirius to admit that he likes Billy Joel.”

“No. Fucking. Way.”

They snicker and cheers to good music, or lack thereof.

“I go to a concert, with you losers of course. I fall in love and mean it,”

They cheers to concerts and to Mary falling in love with a boy who deserves it.

“I want Frank to stop using my toothbrush,”

“And I want Alice to _bloody tell me what her mother puts in the dumplings!_ ”

They cheers to domesticity, to dumplings and toothbrushes.

“I want a new sweater and a good job. And for Lily to stop caving and telling Pete where my chocolate is.”

(Pete looks affronted. Lily smiles pitifully.)

They cheers to that.

“What do you want, Lily?” Mary asks as she slumps against the wall.

She smiles, softly. “For the shitty things to be overlooked because of moments like this.”

They cheers to that.

* * *

 

1st of January, 1979. They don’t remember falling asleep. James’ name is carved onto the wall by the kitchen counter. (But Lily’s is write next to it.)

Lily smiles as James mumbles into her skin.

Maybe it’s going to be okay. Because they’re all there. Together. And nothing else really matters.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
